EDWARDS, Bryan, English author, born in Westbury, .Wiltshire, England, 21 May 1743; died in England, 15 July 1800. He received a fair education at Bristol, and immigrated in 1759 to Jamaica to live with a rich uncle, who gave him the means of completing his education, and made him his heir. He became an eminent merchant and prominent member of the colonial assembly, where he attacked the restrictions made by the government on trade with the United States. He afterward went to Santo Domingo, where he spent several years in collecting materials for his work on that island. He then returned to England, and from 1796 till his death was a member of the House of Commons, where he was a zealous defender of the Creole planters against Wilberforce's attacks on slavery and the slave trade. He published "Thoughts on the Trade of the West India Islands with the United States" (1784); "History of the British Colonies in the West Indies" (2 vols., London, 1793; vol. 3, with plates, 1801; new ed., including two new volumes, 5 vols., 1819; abridgment of the first three vols., 2 vols., 1794). The third volume contains also a " History of Santo Domingo" (first published in 1791; 2d ed., 1797 and an autobiography. Mr. Edwards also published "Conduct of the Government and Colonial Assembly of Jamaica in regard to Fugitive Slaves" (London, 1796), and printed privately "Proceedings of the Association for promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa" (1798), and a volume of poems.